


consideration

by jadeddiva



Series: adaptation [2]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 10:32:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10874937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: Belle has been called strange and funny all of her life, but still, it's a bit strange - funny, even - to be given a library.  Belle tries to understand the Beast, his castle, and her place in it.  Set between when Beast gives her the library and their dance.





	consideration

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the result of a conversation with artielu about what it means to be given a library that is in someone else's castle. Because of course Belle would overanalyze it. 
> 
> Thanks for the beta work, my boo artielu <3

  
 

_Funny_ is a word that has followed Belle most of her life, muttered as she walked past shops, whispered as she took her laundry to the well.  She has grown accustomed to the word, for to her it means that she’s different, and slightly incomprehensible, and that is a perfectly appropriate mantle for her to wear in this town (she does not want this town to be her entire life).

_Strange_ is a feeling that Belle is used to, for sometimes her thoughts seem too big for her head, and sometimes there is so much curiosity inside of her she feels as if she will burst and so she is used to wanting different things, feeling different, being different.

_Strange_ and _funny_ are also words that she would use to describe the servants here, the physical manifestation of a spell, one they refuse to talk about yet embody with their every thought and deed.  Stranger still is their master, the beast who slips between fierce and sullen, hospitable and aloof, different and incomprehensible in his own way.

Still, it is strange – funny, even -  to be gifted a library. 

“It’s yours,” he tells her, and Belle nearly cries in surprise and confusion and wonderment (she has never seen so many books).  It is too much, and she is overwhelmed.

She runs her fingers over leather spines and embossed letters.  She notices that he was right, and there are indeed books in Greek but there are other languages too, languages she is not familiar with.  There are words that look vaguely French but aren’t, titles in different alphabets entirely, all of them filling every shelf from top to bottom.

Belle stays there the entire afternoon, long after he leaves, long after the servants have begun to light candles to combat the weak winter twilight.  She follows Lumière to the dining room with several books in her arms (she cannot bear to part with them) and as she scans the contents over supper, neither the master of the castle nor his servants say anything about it.  

She takes a few back to her room – a book of poetry, one on governance, another that is a book of tales from distant lands.  She piles them on the table beside her bed, looks at them for a moment - the marbled fore-edges, the gilded lettering - and she sighs in contentment.

She’s always been a voracious reader but books held little value to most people in Villeneuve.  Both her father and Père Robert had only a few books in their possession, and Belle read them all cover to cover, over and over and now -

Now there is an entire library with thousands of books that she can read whenever she wants, no laundry to do or chickens to feed, and she is still bewildered by it all.

It’s almost enough to make her forget she is a prisoner.

Almost, but not quite.

In the morning, the library is the first thing on her mind, but before she can jump out of bed she pauses. 

He told her it was her library, but can it really be hers? Why would he give her something so expensive, so extravagant? She is his prisoner, and he the master of the castle. Did that make it _not_ her library? Perhaps she was only allowed to read the books? What does it mean to be given a library?

It is strange to be gifted a library, especially when you’ve never been given anything of any value before (especially when certain traits have rarely been valued before). 

The questions threaten to cloud her mind and she sinks back down into the featherbed, pulls the covers back over her legs.  She must consider this.  She must make sense of everything before she can determine what course of action to take.  

For Belle, that means she must investigate.

 

…

 

“An artist,” her father told her, “must ask questions of the natural world to ascertain true beauty.  An artist must truly understand all that there is to understand to create their most authentic work.”

Belle is no artist, but she has always been curious and so, she asks questions.

Mrs. Potts arrives with breakfast, and Belle sips at her tea, listening to the latest stories from the kitchen while trying to determine how she will ask the questions she has.  As she listens, she realizes how funny it is that she has been here nearly two weeks and how easily she has adjusted to seeing the furniture move, the objects talk, the dishes dance (but perhaps not so funny; after all, she is strange).

  
Finally, she cannot wait any longer.  “He gave me the library,” she says, words tumbling out in a rush.  “Did he really mean that? Is the library mine?”

(What does it even mean, that the library is hers, and yet she is kept prisoner here?) 

“Is that what the master said?” Mrs. Potts responds, and Belle nods.   Mrs. Potts does her best approximation of a shrug (for a teapot, it’s rather impressive). 

“Then that’s what he meant,” Mrs. Potts tells her.  “What you see is what you get with the master.  If he says something, he means it.”

With that, she wheels out the door, leaving Belle on her own to ponder the comment.  Their master is a rather large beast, with rather ghastly manners that have softened since his injury, and since her arrival to the castle a week ago (or perhaps longer - she has lost track of time, each snowy day blending into the next). He is clearly being punished for something (just what that is, no one will say) and so she can assume that he may not, in fact, be inherently good.

But, he has not lied to her, nor misled her with false promises or kind words merely used to gain her trust. He has spoken his mind, however uncomfortable or cruel that has been (was he trying to scare her and if so, _why?_ ). 

Perhaps he really did mean to give her the library (but what that means, Belle hasn’t the slightest idea, and it makes her nervous, like before a storm when the sky is dark and the air is heavy and she doesn’t know yet how bad the damage might be).

…

 

Later that morning, she returns to the library.  The servants have opened all the curtains that were closed after supper last night, and faint morning light trickles in through the glass panes.  Dust hangs in the air from Plumette’s morning routine – she seems to have finished and disappeared already, probably off to tidy Belle’s room – and there is a stillness that radiates outward from the great shelves of books that puts Belle at ease.

Well, at ease enough to conduct an experiment.  The entrance of the castle’s master into the library has given Belle an idea.

She will test the limits of what may or may not be hers.

(She feels foolish in what she is about to do, with what she is learning about him, but the desperate need to know rises inside her chest.  She needs an answer.  She needs to understand.)

She leaves the door closed for the entire morning, skimming through books on history (nearly as dull as Cogsworth) while she watches for the barest hint of movement, listening for the slightest creak of the door hinges.  She hears staff in the hall – the chatter of the chambermaids as they sweep by, the bickering of Lumière and Cogsworth, the rattle of Mrs. Potts on her trolly.  She even hears their master walk by not once but thrice, pausing outside the library each time but never entering. 

None of them enter while the door is closed.

To say that Belle is surprised would be an understatement; after all, is this not the staff that let her out of her cell? Are these not the same servants who barge into her room when they feel she may need tea or a new dress? What is it about _this_ door being closed that prevents them from entering?  Or, is it the fact that _she_ closed the door what matters?

Cogsworth does knock around mealtimes, but no one acts like her closing the door is unusual.  Indeed, even their master merely inquires as to whether or not she enjoyed her day in the library (there is soup dripping from the hair around his mouth as he speaks).

“The library is lovely,” Belle tells them all, because she doesn’t know how to tell any of them that she felt more like a prisoner than she has felt since her first moments in the tower cell.  Supper is tense, as Belle’s entire being feels heavy and when it is finished, she flees to her room.

It is a strange space she occupies in the castle, prisoner and yet not, given freedom of movement but barred from leaving.  It cannot be the enchantment trapping her here, because her father has clearly gone and she made it quite far until the wolves came. 

The offense of her father - stealing a white rose as _she_ had requested - seems a trivial offense, and though she does not regret taking her father’s place (she is young, after all), she does not understand why one should be imprisoned for something so minor.

Perhaps she is being kept here because she has been here too long, and if she returns to the village whatever enchantment lingers here might spread.  But on more than one occasion Belle has looked at her arms, her face, her feet, to see if perhaps she is turning into an object too, or perhaps a beast like their master, but she stills sees her own pale hands and feet, and the freckles across her nose reflecting back at her from the mirror of her bedroom. 

She is not changing, nor is she trapped, so why doesn’t she leave? 

 

...

 

She needs to understand why someone would say that a library belongs to someone else.  She needs to understand why he keeps her prisoner yet gives her a gift beyond measure.  She needs to _understand_ , which means attempting to understand more about her jailer.

“Who built the castle?” Belle asks Cogsworth that afternoon.

She had searched the castle high and low for the head of the household staff, eventually finding him in the dining room supervising the setting of the table for supper hours before the meal would actually be served.  If anyone knew the history of the house, and would talk at length about the former inhabitants, Belle had a feeling that it would be him.  Out of all the servants, Cogsworth seems to know more about the house and it’s master than anyone else, or at least Belle has observed from her interactions with him over the past few weeks. 

She was not incorrect.

“Why, that would be the master’s great-great-great-grandfather,” the clock starts, sounding as excited to be able to speak on a subject as Belle had assumed he would be.

Belle half-listens, a smile plastered on her face, as he begins to tell a rather dull history of the castle’s origins which she isn’t interested in.  She needs to know more about the room that is, allegedly, hers. 

“And the library?” she interrupts.  “Can you tell me more about that?”

“Why certainly, _mademoiselle_ ,” Cogsworth says and she swears he grows three sizes in his enthusiasm.

There is a wistfulness in the way that he speaks about the castle that Belle expected. He details the construction process, the shipping of marble from Carrara, the craftsmen who arrived from all over Europe to help build the beautiful space.  He tells her about more modern additions, like the clockmaker from the Alps who crafted the beautiful piece above the fireplace.  Everything, from the furniture to the curtains, was custom made, and it’s clear that the family paid quite a sum for it.

The wistfulness extends to the family that has lived here for generations that Belle expected, and she wonders just what it was about their master that made the servants so loyal that they would receive such a punishment for their love (not fear, she can tell that now by how they speak of him, the kindness that they show to him that is more than she would expect from the cursed staff).

“Thank you,” she tells him when he is finished.  “I appreciate your willingness to tell me about the history of the castle.”

Cogsworth opens his mouth to speak but at that moment a bell rings deep in the castle –from the West Wing - and with that, Cogsworth scuttles off to answer whatever summons his master has for him.

As for Belle, she returns to the library.

Once there, she arches her neck backwards to look at the ceilings, the tapestries, the decoration.  She hadn’t noticed any of them before but now that she can see them clearly, it’s almost as if this room came together around the books and everything else was meant to fit them. There are intricate paintings and elaborate inlay, polished floors with detailed patterns made of wood and paint, sofas and chairs in plush velvet, heavy curtains and embroidered tapestries.  But this room, despite its beauty, is still focused on the books: books displayed on the shelves, atlases and globes on ornate desks, maps rolled tightly and bound with beautiful silk ribbon. 

She has explored the library somewhat and found that there are more than a few books with the pages uncut (she finds a small knife in a nearby desk and cuts the pages herself, becoming the first person to read this copy of _Candide_ , which is just unbelievable to her).  These are always the ones with the most decorated spines, some with titles she recognizes from when a merchant traveled through town and shared the latest news from Paris.  She assumes that most of this is for show, to display the wealth and power of the family that lived here (though try as she might, she can’t remember any nobility in the region of Villeneuve, no prince or count or someone else of stature).  The unread books fit right in with the fine portraits she found in the gallery, and the crystal chandeliers hanging in the abandoned ballroom.  Everything here is more than Belle has ever seen in her life, and she wonders what sort of people would want to live like this.

But there are more books that look well-used – books of poetry and plays, books on faith and philosophy – and she smiles in thankfulness. 

She may not understand what it means for her to have this library, or why she is still here, but the books draw her in and so she curls up with the play she had selected earlier ( _The Tempest_ ) and reads by the fire for some time.

 

…

 

That night, the castle shifts.

Belle is still awake, her candle burning low as she continues to read. What she hears, first, is a sound like the crack of thunder but as she glances towards out her window, the gardens are bathed in moonlight.  _Perhaps I am imagining things_ , she thinks, thinking back to storms and sorcerers on the pages before her but no – the tassels that line the canopy of her bed are swaying gently.  From the corner of the room, Madame de Garderobe lets out a sigh (or perhaps a groan) before settling back to sleep.

Whatever has happened has just affected the entire castle. 

This is not the first time, Belle realizes.  There have been other times, once or twice since she has arrived, and she has always thought that it was merely weather, or her only fears manifest, or perhaps even the master of the castle storming about in a rage but no.  Now she realizes that the enchantment permeates all throughout this castle, and that it is changing the very structure of the building (she shivers at the thought) 

She pulls her covers up closer to her chin. 

(She wonders if it will change her too.)

 

…

 

The next day, she leaves the door to the library open a crack. 

That is more than for enough encouragement for the staff.  Plumette sweeps in and start dusts the shelves (which already look immaculate, but Belle says nothing to discourage her).  Mrs. Potts to stop by with a new cup of tea every hour or so.  Chip stays to chat with her, tells her all about the goings-on in the kitchen while his mother tuts over his propensity to exaggerate the actions of the oven, their chef.

It is nice, however, to hear such stories, and she is grateful for the company.   Belle enjoys her time alone but she has also come to enjoy her time with the inhabitants of the castle. She is also grateful to know that her hunch was right, and that the staff waits for the door to open or close before entering (the same goes for their master, but Belle is less unsure about how she feels where he is concerned). 

Their master does not enter, but she watches him outside with Philippe, watches as he walks her horse throughout the gardens.  The air around the castle seems particularly cold today, and Cogsworth had informed her that she needn’t go out, _mademoiselle_ , the master would see that Philippe had his exercise.  

“Is it always winter?” she asks Mrs. Potts, who nods.

“Time seems to work differently here,” she bemoans.  “Always winter, even after all these years.”

“How many years?” Belle asks, watching the beast and horse from the window.  Her breath clouds the pane, and she wipes it away with her fingertips.

“I couldn’t even tell you anymore, miss,” Mrs. Potts admits.  “Long enough.”

That seems to be the general attitude of the staff – that whatever enchantment  has been placed on them has gone on too long.  She catches snippets of conversation where they bemoan additional feathers or stiffness of joints, and Belle begins to realize that slowly they are becoming something else, something entirely different from what they were and what they are now. 

“Does the enchantment apply to me?” she asks Lumière one day, making the candelabra laugh.

“Of course not, _ma cherie_ ,” he tells her.  “You were not here, before, so you are not responsible.”

“Responsible for his actions?” She does not specify who and he does not need her to.  He sighs, metal limbs rising and falling.

“In a matter of speaking,” he admits.  “Now, supper will be in the south dining room tonight – “

They always change the conversation every time she asks, or she may only get a smile or some vague comment in response, and so she’s stopped asking.  She had tried to look through the library, but clearly all those books were removed or were never present in the first place.

She watches him in the snow, sees how gentle he is with Philippe and remembers how much kinder he has been with her after their first interaction (she still remembers that first night, the rage as he pounded on her door and the anger that filled her body as she shouted back at him).  She has never behaved like that, has never acted that way even to Gaston.  She is still horrified by her actions, and so she is trying. 

He is trying, too, it seems.

Things have changed – he has changed, or maybe she has, or maybe both.  She knows that he is becoming more patient, and so nervous around her, which makes him seem a little more human each day.  Perhaps one day he will break the enchantment himself, as he appears to be the party responsible.

Belle turns back to the book in the lap, and the chatter of Chip on the nearby table.

Perhaps. 

 

...

 

It is not until the following day, when she leaves the door wide open, that he enters.

He is clearly hesitant, clearly uncertain.  That much is obvious in his desperate attempt to find whatever book he is searching for as quickly as possible, which only results in him finding the wrong one and having to return (he is so awkward for someone so large).  

It is not until the third time that he returns that Belle finally laughs. 

“Stay,” she implores. “The library is big enough for the two of us.”

This seems to startle him.  “I…” he starts, then stops.  He looks at her, and Belle meets his eyes. 

She smiles, encouraging him.

He nods.                                                                                    

He sits. 

He stays.

And Belle welcomes his presence. For all their quirks, the servants are not human – not that their master is (he may have human mannerisms but he is not human, not now) but he is a more solid presence, a more tangible form in the corner of her eye.

She is a little less lonely when he is around her, thumbing through books and making noises ( _hmph_ when he reads something he doesn’t agree with and a soft sigh when whatever he reads pleases him).  He stays and reads with her for a while until he becomes restless – fingers drumming against his knees, fidgeting in his chair – and when Belle looks at him over her book, he looks chastised. 

“You’re not very good at staying still,” she points out, and he makes a noise that sounds like agreement, or perhaps something else. 

“I never was,” he tells her.  “Much to the chagrin of my tutors.”

Belle covers her smile with her book, trying to imagine him as a child, trying to imagine him as young or small.  She knows that as a small girl she was often chastised by the women of the village for fidgeting during Mass, and despite his outward appearance, Chip is every bit a young boy as he could (should) be.  It is the curse of youth to be active.  But with him, she thinks back to the bored look on his painting, the grandeur of the castle.  Perhaps he was merely bored. 

“You’re not surprised.”

Belle raises her eyebrows, chooses not to look at him.  “No,” she admits, “I’m not.  You were a terrible patient.”

He _hmphs_ again, but there’s something to his anger that feels as if it is in jest, that he is pretending to be more annoyed than he truly is, and when Belle returns to her reading, she occasionally stops and watches him over the pages.  

She is not at all surprised to find that he is watching her too.

 

...

 

 

Belle spends her days exploring the castle. 

The library stands in the heart of the castle, the cells on the West and her bedroom to the East.  While the East Wing seems fine, Belle has noticed (from her occasional forays into the West Wing taking care of her belligerent patient) that not all of the castle is in a gilded state.  Indeed, the closer she gets to the master’s chamber, and the rose, that some of the bloom has come off the flower.  She notices it first in his chamber - everything was more worn, more used, but also dark and decrepit in a way that contrasts with the openness and light of the library.   She’s seen it in the halls, felt it in the shifts of the castle beneath her feet as she walks.  Whatever spell has been cast seems to extend outward from the rose beneath its glass dome, and she wonders how long it will be until it affects the entire castle.

Sometimes she cannot stay indoors a moment longer, and so she takes a turn about the garden with him as company.  Sometimes they walk Phillippe.  She feels sorry for her horse, that he cannot roam as freely as he did in the pastures by the village, but it is safer for him to be here, away from the wolves. 

When she is not walking through the estate, she is climbing the ladders in the library, searching for books.

Nothing is organized, and so she tries to tidy up as she goes, grouping books on plants and herbs together, reuniting history books on the same shelves.  It is a thankless task but she finds some sort of small comfort in it, in the repetitive motions and trying to solve the problem of where to put different books. 

Oddly enough, no one returns any of the books to their original places, nor do they touch the piles of books Belle makes as she rearranges the library.

  
That is when she finds it: a small Bible.  It is not the first Bible she has found in the library, for just the other day she found a large one with jeweled inlay shoved hastily in a corner, forgotten ( _she can’t imagine why_ , she thinks dryly).   The large Bible must have been an heirloom, much like the one of her mother’s that her father keeps beside his bed.  

No, not a Bible, for upon closer inspection Belle discovers that this is more likely a woman’s prayer book. It is full of hymns and psalms and Bible passages, and when Belle opens it she finds a small bouquet of flowers pressed between the pages of Psalm 23.

Her fingers trace the dried flowers carefully before closing that page and leafing through the remainder.  This book of prayers was well-used, it seems, and Belle is reminded again of the book in the table beside her father’s bed, the one that he says gave her mother comfort when she needed it. 

Whoever had this book loved it just as much, and Belle hesitates, suddenly sentimental.  Whoever left it here must be long dead, and it does not belong to her.  She will put it back where she found it and that will be the end of it. 

She can hear him before he enters (she wonders if it is the enchantment, or if he has always been someone who has never felt comfortable in his own skin) and so she looks up when he enters.  She is still timid, still waiting for him to tell her that it she is intruding, that all this enchantment will end right now and she will return to her room or, worse, her cell. 

She is waiting for him to define the place she occupies in his castle.

Oddly enough, he does no such thing.  Instead, his eyes find the book and they soften visibly.

“I haven’t seen that in ages,” he says, his deep voice suddenly softer, quieter than she’s heard it before.  He takes a step forward then, self-aware, asks, “may I?”

“Of course,” Belle says, handing him the prayer book, and she wants to add _it is yours after all_ just to see what he will respond but now is not the time nor place for that, she thinks.  

“I remember this,” he tells her. “This was my mother’s.”  He cradles the small book in his hands, gingerly turning the pages with the claws. “She would take this with her to Mass.” 

The beast touches the aging pages reverently, eyes scanning through the contents.  There is a look on his face, and Belle can only describe it as yearning.  She looks at him, at the way that his face is less beastly, more human, but whatever emotion stirs within her makes her look away, uncertain and alarmed.

With Belle’s movement, whatever reverie has come over him when he saw the book has been broken.  He places the book on a nearby table, and he steps back as if burned.  “But that was a lifetime ago.”

“I’m sorry, should I – “ Belle goes to close the book, but he shakes his head, backing away. 

“I must go,” he tells her as he flees the room.

Belle studies the prayer book, which has suddenly taken on new meaning.  She wonders if a younger version of this – of the master of this castle – would read the book alongside his mother.  She wonders if there is a chapel on the estate, or if they went to the church in Villeneuve (did he hold his mother’s hand as they walked? What is it like, to hold a mother’s hand?).

She places the prayer book on the table, overcome with questions.  Even when gone, his presence suddenly crowds the library and her mind and she feels unwelcome in the space, threatened by memories she does not have, will never have. She hurries out the door, leaving the candles lit and hoping one of the servants will extinguish them for her.

When she returns the next morning, the prayer book is gone.

 

…

 

 

She doesn’t tell him this – will never tell him, or another soul – but she knows his given name. 

She found it, along with the names of his parents and grandparents and on and on, in the large family Bible in the library.  There, on an extensive family tree, written in overly-complicated cursive, were his names.  He has maybe four or five names total, but she knows his name and yet…she doesn’t think of him as that person.

Whoever that person was brought some great misery on himself and those around him.

Whoever is here – beast, cursed man, whomever – is not the same. 

She remembers the oil painting in the West Wing, thinks of the handsome man with the haughty, bored look.  She wonders what he was like, though she suspects she wouldn’t have liked him very much (probably as boorish as Gaston, though she’s heard multiple times about how expensive his education was).

  
He is no longer like that, for he watches her with eyes that have shifted from hostility to bemusement, and she doesn’t recoil so much when she catches his gaze.

She knows his name, but she doesn’t think of him as that name, but if Belle is honest then part of that reason is because she thinks about him far too much already.

 

…

 

Her father genuinely believes that people and clocks are similar in that they hide their true, complex inner-workings underneath colorful exteriors. 

“We are all so very much like clocks, Belle,” he told her, winding the springs, positioning the gears just so.  “There is always much more that makes us tick than we can see with the naked eye.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” she always responded in jest, but there was always a part of her that wondered if there was more going on than what she saw.

The villagers of Villeneuve showed their true characters – wants, desires, ambitions - in their daily lives, in the way they dressed and talked and spoke.  Nothing was hidden underneath where they were concerned.  But here at the castle, Belle is learning how important it is to remember that appearances can (clearly, obviously) be deceiving.

  
Like in the case of the master of this castle.

The morning after he leaves the library in a rush, he apologizes.

“I am sorry for my behavior last evening,” he says, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. 

The staff has already brought the dishes and Belle is reaching for a pastry when he says this.  Mrs. Potts is pouring her master’s tea, and she glances up quickly at Belle when he speaks.

Belle stops what she is doing, places her hands in her lap, and looks at him. 

She wants to tell him that she understands – that there are trinkets from her childhood that make her heart swell with emotion.  She thinks that maybe she should tell him that he can to trust her – that she has stayed true to her word (well, after that incident with the wolves, at least) – but she’s unsure if that will change anything between them, or give her any more insight into who he is.  There are other things she wants to tell him, nebulous emotions that ebb and flow in her mind, taking no certain form and so she opens her mouth then closes it again.

“Thank you,” she finally says. 

Her words are sufficient: her acknowledgement of his apology seems to catch him by surprise, and he looks up at her with an expression she can’t quite read on his face, but which seems grateful, perhaps.

That business being concluded, they both turn back to their meal, and as he reaches for his tea, she swears she sees a shadow of a smile on the corner of his mouth.

(Maybe he did intend for her to have the library after all.)

 

 

…

 

He takes her to Paris - or, rather, the Paris of her childhood, one that she only recognizes from her father’s drawings and stories. 

He takes her into her past and she returns reeling, her hand clutching his arm, her mind spinning.  The loss of her mother has always haunted her and her father, and she’s never known, she’s never realized -

And yet, knowing her mother died of plague, and that her father escaped Paris with her, doesn’t change much.  Her mother is still dead, and she never knew her yet she misses her all the same (how can you miss someone you never really met?).

The magic that brought them to Paris brings them back to the library, and she is still holding onto him when the room stops moving and she is back on solid ground.  Belle’s heart is still racing, and she doesn’t let go, not at first, and he doesn’t remove her hand.

Instead, he places his paw on top of her hand.

Neither of them say anything. Belle blinks back tears.

Some time passes and finally, he speaks.

“My mother died when I was seven.”

 Belle feels his paw tense over her hand (his paw is so warm, so large over her small fingers) before he removes it.

“Do you still miss her?” she asks, aware of the tremor in her voice.

“Every day.”

Belle blinks, wetness in her eyes, and slips her hand away to wipe at her tears.  She’s never known her mother and yet she imagines to have a mother and then lose her -

“What was she like?” she asks, her voice softer and quieter than usual even to her own ears. 

He smiles.  “She was very kind, and very beautiful.  She loved to ride, and she loved to walk through the meadows and pick flowers.”  He pauses, looks away towards the window.  “I used to make her crowns of wildflowers, and she always wore them.”

  
Belle remembers the small bouquet between the pages of the prayer book, tries to imagine the beast before her as a small child.   “She died before…” she trails off.

He nods.  “She did not live to see me become…” he trails off too, gesturing to himself.   “A small mercy, but there are times I wonder if any of this would have happened were she still alive.”

This is the most that he has spoken of the enchantment that transformed him and the rest of the castle, and Belle is more than aware of her interest. There are so many questions she wants to ask him, so many things she needs to know, just to try to understand what is happening here, and why she stays (she knows by now that it is not the fear of the wolves that keeps her here, though what it really is she does not care to say). 

 She wipes her tears away with her sleeve, sniffles, gathering up the courage to ask. “Will I...become something else?  The longer I stay here, will I change too?”

He turns around and there is no escaping the concern that is edged across his broad face.  “No! No.  This enchantment is not for you.”  He looks down.  “It’s for me, and my own foolishness.”

“But your staff…” she begins.  “I don’t understand.”

He shakes his head slowly.  “I’ve long wondered why they were punished for my behaviors, and the only conclusion I have is that it was meant to punish me further.” 

He looks up at her, and his blue eyes shine with something - sincerity or hope, she doesn’t know how to describe the emotion that is in his eyes.   He opens his mouth to speak - to tell her more, and she wonders what it could possibly be, but he says nothing.   He closes his mouth again, and whatever look was in his eyes seems to fade.

“I must go find Cogworth.”

He leaves the library with a bow, his heavy footsteps retreating down the hallway. 

Belle watches him go, and she is surprised that her heart is pounding as much as it was when they first returned from their sojourn.  She presses hand to her chest, feels it racing beneath her palm.  So much has changed in an hour (maybe less?) and there are so many answers to so many questions and she just needs to make sense of all that she has learned, all that she now knows about her mother and _him_ and - 

The atlas is still open on the table, the map still rippling with magic. 

She closes the book with a loud _thud_.

 

...

 

The castle seems colder today, so the two of them are seated around the fireplace in the library.  Belle wraps the warm coverlet that Lumière has brought her tighter around her shoulders.  There is a pile of books are her feet, and another at his and it is surprisingly pleasant.

  
Times moves differently here, that much is true: she thinks it’s been weeks since she arrived but it could have been days, or maybe months, or perhaps years.   Regardless of how long it’s been, the castle becomes less strange each day, its inhabitants less threatening, the beast who sits beside her less grim.  He seems utterly transformed from the creature she first met, so full of anger and injustice that she bristles at the memory. 

Now he is something else entirely, softer and more sincere, and she can honestly say that she does not mind this change in character.

(She wonders, too, if she has become softer as well – more patient, less judgmental, more willing to be adaptive in a way that she may not have been before.)

“I’m not sure I ever thanked you for showing me your library,” she tells him. 

He shrugs, his great shoulders rising and falling beneath the heavy blankets. 

“You enjoy reading – it seemed only natural to open up this room,” he replies.  “Besides, I was hoping that you’d cultivate better taste in literature.” 

His tone is warm despite his mockery of her reading habits, and she finds herself smiling (perhaps she _has_ grown soft).

“Preferences aside,” she tells him with an eye-roll, “in the village where I came from, I was considered funny for reading as much as I did - or reading at all, come to think of it.”

The memories are not the happiest memories in Belle’s life but she needs him to understand this about her.  She wants him to understand how much it means that she can come here and read and not be judged.

  
Now that she sees him, knows him,  she wants him to see and know her.

“Funny?” he asks, surprised.

Belle sighs.  “Having ideas beyond being a wife and mother made me seem strange.”

“Of all the things in this castle, you are the least strange,” he says softly, and she is surprised by the sadness that seems to fill his voice.  “I am so sorry that you were treated that way.”

Then, his voice changes.  “They are fools, all of them.”

The vehemence in his tone catches Belle by surprise - other than her father, very few have looked out for her with any sort of affection – and so she tries to pretend it doesn’t matter, shrugs her shoulders and attempts to change the subject even though her heart has leaped into her throat and she can barely swallow it back down.

“No matter,” she says.  “I have all the books I need now.  I appreciate you letting me use it.”

“Use it? It’s yours.” 

There is a confused look on his face (Belle is sure her face must wear one similar), and he continues, “I told you that it is yours, and you may do with it as you like.  Even if it means some rearranging of the stock.”

Belle blinks.  He has just answered the very question that has plagued her for however long and yet there’s something that leaves her unsatisfied.  Why, she doesn’t quite understand - she has one of the things she’s always longed for: a quiet place to read with more than enough books to fill the hours. 

That does not seem to be enough for her.

“Did you ever use it – before?” she asks, more than a little frightened that he will leave.  It has been several days since their trip to Paris, and since he spoke to her about whatever spell has been cast on him and this castle.  Things between them have changed since that afternoon, and he is being truthful now in a way that she wants to continue.

“No.  Not as much as I did once I…” he trails off.  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.  You are here, and the library is being put to good use.”   He gives her a small smile, and there is such hope within it that she looks away.

He has known her for less time than any of the people of Villeneuve, and yet he knows her far better than any of them ever tried.

“Thank you,” she replies.  Before she realizes it, she is reaching across their chairs and resting her hand against his paw.  “I do appreciate your care for my wellbeing.”

There is a moment when he looks down at her hand on his paw, when he seems to freeze up at the mere idea that she is touching him, and she freezes up too.  She is trying to do something - what, she doesn’t know but she is trying, for both their sakes.

“It is the least I can do to give you a space of your own, beyond your quarters, while you are here.” 

He looks uncertain at this admission, like he has just remembered she’s his prisoner.

Prisoner. 

_Oh_ , of course.

Belle smiles tightly, removes her hand from his paw slowly and carefully (had she really, truly forgotten that she was a prisoner as well?).

That feeling of dissatisfaction she felt earlier is suddenly clear.  He understands her, he has given her a library, but he is still keeping her here - for what?  Her father attempted to steal a rose, for her.  She gave herself in return.                              

She wants to remind him, that he has barred her from leaving the castle.  She wants to remind him that this library and all of its books mean very little when she is not free.  She wants to tell him that she cannot help him with this enchantment, nor can she help him overcome whatever memories from his past haunt him.

She is just a strange, funny girl with her own library yet kept prisoner in a derelict castle (she cannot help him if she cannot even help herself).

Belle stands up, shifting the coverlet back onto the chair, slipping her feet back into her shoes.  There is a nervousness inside of her, a buzzing that spreads through her veins and she needs to _move_.

“I need another book,” she mumbles, not even sure she’s speaking until she’s out of her chair and walking to the other end of the library, books in hand. 

The thoughts in her mind come one after the other, so fast and so furious that she can barely comprehend one before another is struggling to take its place.  She wants to be free, but she is also true to her word, and she vowed she would take her father’s place for as long as necessary.  She will not go back on that for while she is here and not free, her integrity may be all that she has to hold on to.

It is better for her, in some ways, to be here and not in the village.  He’s right - she’s hardly the strangest thing in the castle, and for the first time she feels as if there is a place where she belongs.  She never belonged in Villeneuve, never belong with everyone sneering at her or, worse, attempting to woo her like Gaston was always doing.  Here, she is safe from ridicule.  Here, no one thinks she is funny.  Here, she can be herself, and everyone seems to understand and appreciate that (even the master of the castle, and her jailer).

(Perhaps she has just traded one prison for another…?)

She misses her father, but there are many widows in the village who will take care of him, make sure that he is fed and his laundry done.

But the servants here... Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Plumette, even Cogsworth...she has to admit that she is bothered by the fact that every day a bit of their humanity slips away from them.  Belle may not be a sorcerer, but she is intelligent and stubborn and maybe she can find a way to help them.   It would be the right thing to do, to help when she can, and maybe, just maybe…

She looks over her shoulder, at the hulking figure beside the fire, and tries to swallow once more (in the depths of her heart, she knows who’s keeping her here). 

She is so deep in thought that Lumière’s entrance into the library, and his announcement that supper is served, takes her by surprise and she drops the books she had forgotten she was holding. 

“Belle?”

Immediately he is at her side, his blue eyes so concerned as he reaches down to start piling up the books she dropped. She kneels down beside him but there are not many and he hands them to her, a frown forming between his brows.

“Head in the clouds,” she says softly, remembering what one of the housewives had said once at the well (maybe she is better off here after all).

 She takes the books from him and stands.

“Thank you,” she says, looking away as she places the books on the table beside her.  He is a large presence near her, so imposing and so strange that she looks away, remembering the kindness of his eyes, and how different he is now, and how surprising it is that her heart races once more.

“Shall we?” he asks, extending his arm and her heart speeds up. 

There is something in the air between them, like the heaviness before a summer storm: her skin feels alive and her hair feels as if it is standing up straight.  There is something there that wasn’t there before and as funny as it seems, she’s far too interested to turn away now (she has so many questions, so many things she needs to know).

  
Belle nods, and places her hand on his arm. 

 


End file.
